Oakland’s textile arts scene is a hotbed of creative innovators

It really is no wonder the contemporary textile arts scene, which is broadening its accessibility and appeal to amateur textile artists and sewn arts enthusiastists, has its home base in the Bay Area.

“There are small communities of weavers and dyers in most cities,” said Sierra Reading, who teaches dyeing and garment making to high school students, “but the big names are all here in Oakland and the Bay Area.”

Like chef proponents of the slow food movement–another Bay Area export–many garment artisans connect their craft to larger political values and view it as a tool for social change. Textile arts have been presided over by the fine art world and experts of the ancient science basically since industrialization. But in recent years, more and more textile artists have turned to face the public with their work.

In the very-Oakland spirit of championing local, DIY and ecologically-minded consumption in order to divest from unsustainable corporations, many local textile artists say that they want to restore our sense of reverence for the process of textile and garment making.

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